No fun at all, as it turns out.Īll nine seasons of Peep Show are now streaming on Netflix, so if you haven’t yet watched Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong’s groundbreaking sitcom – the longest-running in Channel 4’s history, no less – now is the time to venture into the minds of David Mitchell’s Mark and Robert Webb’s Jez, two best friends and flatmates who lurch from one disaster to the next. To watch it is to learn to trust no-one, question everything and definitely not pursue a career as a spy. It loses its way in the middle seasons, occasionally skirting utter daftness, but it’s always compulsive and entertaining – and more recent stuff is back on form. It’s packed with award-winning performances, believably flawed characters, just enough politics and more twists than a box of Curly-Wurlys. It begins as the story of the relationship between a CIA operative and a long-imprisoned ex-Marine, finally liberated from al-Qaeda and returned to America as a war hero – a hero with an abundance of devastating secrets – but moves beyond their relationship in later seasons (there are seven in total). If there were a graph that showed the tension levels of the tensest moment in the tensest thrillers in history, Homeland‘s producers would have taken it, twisted it into an infinitesimally thin rope and used it to whip Stressed Eric’s pulsing temple vein until it popped. That said, the characterisation remains a high point, with even the nastiest villains feeling like genuinely believable and relatable characters. You get the sense Bennett may have always wanted to create a British answer to The Wire, but with the resources to do that bit off a little more than he could chew: the sheer amount of murder, mayhem and gunplay that goes on here simply feels implausible. The original two seasons, released in 20 (and now available to stream on Netflix as Top Boy: Summerhouse), only need four episodes apiece, and at times it feels like creator Ronan Bennett has cast his net a little too wide in the newer seasons – in his efforts to tell the story of modern England, some subplots are introduced then forgotten about an episode later.
The first of new seasons runs to a hefty 10 episodes, and the second eight. With a seemingly bigger budget and the luxury of Netflix’s “make as many episodes as you want” approach, this new series of Top Boy picks up the story and expands its scope somewhat. After a long hiatus, Netflix (with a little help from Canadian rap superstar Drake) revived this cancelled Channel 4 East London crime drama.
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